A surviving stretch of the former Iron Curtin border, left standing as a historical reminder.

Deer are still staying on their respective sides of the former Iron Curtain a quarter of a century after the electrified barbwire border fencing was removed at the end of the Cold War, researchers say.

The animals were fitted with radio collars along the border of Germany’s Bavaria region and the western edge of the now Czech Republic during a six-year study.

“Deer on the Czech side of the Bohemian Forest wander no farther than where barbed wire used to mark the restricted area along the national border,” said Pavel Sustr, a Sumava National Park zoologist who headed the study.

Only a small handful of deer were found to break with tradition, wandering a short distance across the border.

It’s believed that female deer pass on territorial boundaries to their young from generation to generation.

Sustr says he thinks that the Iron Curtain mentality will eventually disappear, and more deer will start to wander freely between the two countries.